Advice or thoughts on SEO?

[Beanwood]

My wife is finally getting around to starting a business. She qualified as a dog trainer a few years ago, and for various reasons did noting with it, until this year.

Anyway - long story short - now is the time for her to pick it up. She has completed MORE training, and created a really good website.
The next problem appears to be getting people to her website, by pushing it further up the search engine results on the likes of Google.

Now with you being a knowledgable bunch in all sorts of unexpected fields, and many of you running businesses, this may be something you could advise on?

Apparently she needs an SEO. They seem to cost from £100 per month - which seems quite a lot when she's only charging £36 per hour for 1-2-1 training. But if you read the articles they all say £100 is to cheap, and may be counterproductive.

Is £100 reasonable
Are they worth it?
Are there realistic alternatives
What questions should we be asking to sort the ones that can deliver from the ones who CLAIM they can deliver.

Thanks for reading.

 

[D_W]

Most of the service providers here have more luck with facebook and other such things locally.

not sure if SEO is maybe a better idea as time goes on because google will note your location and that of a provider, but it used to be a better idea for someone looking to sell things delivered digitally.

Websites are a store of knowledge with potential to post media at this point, but by themselves, not a draw. Is your wife looking to train dogs over zoom, etc, or just local and in person? if the latter, I think starting at the local level with facebook, etc, and posting content to draw and get references (and point to the website from there).

 

[Beanwood]

Thanks - yes he has a Facebook page as well (She's getting very techie!!),

It's just a challenge trying to 'get noticed', even on Facebook (That I have never personally enjoyed, and find difficult to use)

 

[Jacob]

SEO is Search Engine Optimisation - you don't need an expert but there are strategies, the basic one being to have a site which is interesting and informative about the topic, just like a print production or any other promotion.
Second is to make sure that key ideas, concepts, words and expressions are well featured up front, which is where search engines search first.
Third is to have interesting/helpful stuff on the site which may attract viewers who would then find you main interest; dog training. Having lots of instruction on dog training itself, helpful links to other sites and even give away your trade secrets etc so the site becomes a resource for dog training info. Out of the 1000s of visitors you may get you only need a few to pay for what you offer, to make it worth while.
There's loads on the net about it - it isn't rocket science and there are simple wheezes. e.g. if you have an image of a cockerpoo on your site you give the image a name before you upload it such as cockerpoo.jpeg rather than image997.jpeg. And make sure that the word "cockerpoo" occurs in the text - naturally not just plastered in randomly. Search engines will recognise text - the word cockerpoo but not the image itself

 

[hog&bodge]

There is a site called nextdoor.co.uk Have seen few people advertising their dog walking
services on there, has it reached you end of the woods yet.?

 

[D_W]

nextdoor is one of the other locals here, too, that folks will use. I don't use either site (no services to offer), but gather that folks who use facebook and nextdoor spend a fair amount of time at the outset figuring out how to draw people - and much of it has to do with just posting new stuff on a regular basis. It's sort of like fertilizing a lawn that's sparse at first - it takes some time for it to fill in, but the effort pays off if it's kept up with.

 

[RobinBHM]

Apparently she needs an SEO. They seem to cost from £100 per month

I dont think it makes sense for a small 1 person business to spend a lot on SEO.

the problem is that SEO experts wont be expert in dog training.

My advice would be to ensure the website she has created is SEO friendly and has the headings, titles, content, image tags etc all make the use of keywords

there is some really simple research that can be done: put yourself in the shoes of a potential client, what search words would they use, think about about long tail keywords (these are search phrases of say 3 or more words, perhaps less common -but there maybe lots of them, adding up to useful traffic)


I thoroughly recommend joining full membership of the UKbusiness forum which is £36 for a year

that enables you to see a section called website reviews -on there you can add a link and ask for a review -dont be upset by the responses, they can be brutal but you will get lots of info.

Also there is an SEO section on the forum -where your wife can ask for advice. Not only that but a number of the people that post there are SEO pros -so your wife could pay and get maybe some one off help tweaking the website.

for the business your wife has, I would think she should be able to get sufficient organic searches by improving her website rather than paying for continuous monthly SEO


For my own website, I did loads of my own research, I designed the pages and content based on keywords and I got a designer to build it -I got enough leads and I stopped advertising completely within a year (business closed now)






Social media:
as mentioned above: join nextdoor
and join the local village facebook group
set up a google my business page


maybe advertise in the parish magazine -they stick around a long time

 

[SteL]

There are loads of tools to do an audit of how well your site is optimised for search engines. I've had success with Ahrefs site audit tool in the past.

Start an Ahrefs trial

They offer a trial of $7 for 7 days. Why not do that? All you have to do is add the URL of your site and it'll give you some actionable advice. This is a free one...

https://neilpatel.com/seo-analyzer/
The best way you can get up the search engine rankings is by getting good reputable sites to link to you. It's not as easy as just posting your link say on a forum like this as those types of links don't count anywhere near as much. That is the main battle of SEO - getting good quality backlinks to your site. How you do that is where the experts come in with their tactics. I'd say have a go yourself first. Google "How to get backlinks" and there are lots of different strategies.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks
One thing to note is if your website is new you've got virtually no chance of getting up the search engine rankings. You'll be placed in a sandbox for a while - even as long as 12 months. If your site is new even the worlds greatest SEO expert can't get you up there but they can start getting you all those backlinks and optimising your site for when you come out of the sandbox. It's a bit of a grind. That Ahrefs tool lets you spy on your competitor and see who is linking to them. You can then contact them and ask for the same link or tell them about some good content you have. Those tools let you reverse engineer how your competitors have got their position in Google.

Another free simple tool you can use is Lighthouse...

https://web.dev/measure/
That'll give you information on how well your site performs in various areas.

Make sure you sign up for Google Search Console Google Search Console That will explicitly tell you how well you're doing so you can measure if your efforts are actually working. It lets you know how many backlinks you have, where you rank for certain search terms etc and it's free. The other search engines have similar consoles.

It all comes down to time, I suppose. If you think the time spent doing it yourself could be best spent elsewhere, the £100 might be worth it.

Good luck.

 

[powertools]

Is your wife offering on line courses or is she looking for local customers for 1 to 1 training?

 

[starlingwood]

Search terms like "dog training"and "dog training in anywhere town" etc and see what comes up. The website needs to day you are located in anywhere town.

Also first thing is definitely regsiter the business and address with Google so you show up on Google maps. It's free too!

 

[hog&bodge]

nextdoor is one of the other locals here, too, that folks will use. I don't use either site (no services to offer), but gather that folks who use facebook and nextdoor spend a fair amount of time at the outset figuring out how to draw people - and much of it has to do with just posting new stuff on a regular basis. It's sort of like fertilizing a lawn that's sparse at first - it takes some time for it to fill in, but the effort pays off if it's kept up with.

I would take a look at nextdoor it is well used I got a message saying they are about become a public company.
Only today I picked up a 8 foot x 8 foot shed today on there, the same one that is on sale at Argos now. Only wanted £100, all I have to do is take apart
and its mine.
People link their facebook to the site along with other sites..
It is all word of mouth & time. I can understand how frustrating it is for your wife wanting to get on.

 

[Adam W.]

For google optimisation, regular site updates and youtube content linked to the site produce almost instant results.

Also the more links to the site you create, the higher the ranking.Which is why it's a good idea to link the site in all forum signatures.

 

[Beanwood]

Wow - you all really ARE knowledgable about all sorts of things.

Thanks for your help so far, there's a lot here to work through, so if I don't get back to this in 5 mnutes, it isn't because I don't want to - I'm just trying to do you all justice for the information you've shared.
For those that asked - she CAN do online content (A lot of trainers have gone that route now) and has a catalogue of training videos to support that, but she will be specialising in Reactive dogs - so face to face tends to be better I believe.

North of Bristol if anyone needs help

 

[MarkAW]

Hello. I'm a Web developer to earn a living.
You won't need to spend any money on SEO for a small localised business. There's some online free tools that you can put the address into and they'll give you a report and advise on what to change to make it better if you wish. It may be more worthwhile getting listed on Google maps with contact info and the like where location is a big factor. Social media is also a big contributor these days so having a page on them and regular posts there will help

 

[Beanwood]

Hello. I'm a Web developer to earn a living.
You won't need to spend any money on SEO for a small localised business. There's some online free tools that you can put the address into and they'll give you a report and advise on what to change to make it better if you wish. It may be more worthwhile getting listed on Google maps with contact info and the like where location is a big factor. Social media is also a big contributor these days so having a page on them and regular posts there will help

Interesting - do you have any names of tools you'd recommend please?

 

[profchris]

Almost all customers will be local, so focus on what works locally. NextDoor and Facebook Marketplace are obvious candidates.

And dont forget offline! I'd find out the local dog walking hotspots and pin up some posters.

 

[profchris]

And, back to online, get a QR code on those posters which links to the website!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I'll be honest and say that dogs are not my thing - but if the customer base is principally local, a large part of her effort should go engaging directly with people locally through:

• pet shops
• kennels
• dog walkers
• dog grooming services
• writing "doggy" column for local newspapers (they are often happy for free copy)
• attending and advertising at dog shows and country fairs

For many predominantly local businesses success comes medium and long term through word of mouth and satisfied customers.

Those who use web searches will almost certainly include the location (most people will probably not want to travel far) - a search on Google maps for "dog training " throws up ~10 different names around Bristol.

If your website can feature in this sort of search there is probably little more you need do other than ensure the site is the equal of the best for appearance, usability, functionality, add-ons. Sites which are clunky, don't get updated, have broken links etc etc are a definite turn-off for potential customers.

 

[ian33a]

I would seriously consider using a printed medium such as a local A5 magazine so as to establish the business. For very little money she could take out a quarter page advert (perhaps she could create it or pay somebody to do it for her) and run this for a few months so as to establish a presence. Contrary to what many say, people do flick through such magazines and, because they are targeted geographically, it reduces travel need and so reduces business cost. Digital marketing, unless done properly, becomes rather scatter gun and dilutes the bottom line.

I have nothing against digital advertising and would supplement the A5's with something like Facebook. Printed adverts draw people in and word of mouth propagates the business offering. FB reaffirms that the business is out there, thriving and providing a service that people want. A FB page needs to remain fresh and with interesting content - its a nice creative outlet to broadcast what has been happening and what is planned and keeps customers engaged. It's also very cheap.

 

[RobinBHM]

Hello. I'm a Web developer to earn a living.
You won't need to spend any money on SEO for a small localised business. There's some online free tools that you can put the address into and they'll give you a report and advise on what to change to make it better if you wish. It may be more worthwhile getting listed on Google maps with contact info and the like where location is a big factor. Social media is also a big contributor these days so having a page on them and regular posts there will help

Out of interest, do you use Wordpress for your builds? - or maybe you are a developer of large sites and using code.

I'm just having a play with generate press to see if I can build my own website - but I'm slightly wondering if I should get somebody to do it for me.